The Brothers Karamazov: Part 4: Book 10, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

The widow of the official Krasotkin, Anna Fyodorovna Krasotkin, lives in a small house close to Plotnikov’s shop. Her husband died almost fourteen years earlier. Mrs. Krasotkin was eighteen and had just borne a son. She has since devoted herself to the upbringing of her boy, Kolya. When the boy started school, his mother studied all of his subjects with him. She got acquainted with his teachers and their wives and even made a point of being sweet to his classmates so that they wouldn’t bully him.

Kolya Krasotkin looks down on everyone and accepts respect as his due, but he still behaves “in a comradely way.” With his mother, he behaves “despotically.” When this occurs, she cries hysterically and makes “heartfelt effusions.” The more she does this, however, the colder he becomes.

Kolya loves reading and playing pranks. One night, he offers to lie down on the rails when the eleven o’clock train comes. Kolya already knew that it was possible to stretch and flatten oneself out so that the train could pass over someone lying there. When he tells this to a group of fifteen-year-olds who regard him as a “boy,” much to Kolya’s offense, they laugh at him. That night, the boys gather to await the train, and Kolya lies down between the rails. After the train goes by, the boys rush to Kolya, who isn’t moving. He tells them that he pretended to be unconscious to frighten them, but he actually fainted. Still, his reputation as a “desperado” is firmly established.

After the railway incident, Kolya’s relationship with his mother changes. When Anna Fyodorovna heard about her son’s deed, she nearly lost her mind from terror. She had hysterical fits for days, causing Kolya to give her his word that he’d never play such a prank again. He burst into tears but, the next morning, he “woke up as unfeeling as ever.” As the woman’s anxiety increases, the romantic hopes of Dardanelov, Kolya’s world history teacher, also increase. He has developed romantic interest in Anna Fyodorovna. While Kolya previously despised Dardanelov for his “feelings,” Kolya decides to speak more kindly of him around his mother, which Anna Fyodorovna gratefully takes for her son’s approval. When Dardanelov comes around, however, Kolya distracts himself with his dog, Perezvon. Kolya is the boy whom Ilyusha stabbed in the thigh with a penknife.